Tag: Hilary C. Franco

“Six Popes”: One of “The Six” Gets His Copy

Monsignor Hilary C. Franco presenting a copy of “Six Popes: A Son of the Church Remembers” to Pope Francis during a private audience in the Apostolic Palace, the papal residence, Vatican City, on September 4, 2021. Published here with the permission of Monsignor Franco.

Last May in “Monsignor Hilary C. Franco’s wonderful life,” I announced the launch of Six Popes:  A Son of the Church Remembers (Humanix Books, 2021), which I ghostwrote after interviewing him in late 2019, early 2020.

This morning he sent me several photos taken last Saturday during his audience with one of The Six, Pope Francis, in the papal residence. The one you see on the left is posted here with his permission.

Edward Pentin, the National Catholic Register Rome correspondent who has speculated about Francis’s successor in The Next Pope, has this to say about Six  Popes:

With a life spanning six pontificates, Monsignor Hilary Franco’s new book offers insights into current crises within the Church and society, highlighting his work with Venerable Fulton Sheen, and even helping Mother Angelica during EWTN’s first days … Now in his eighties, the Bronx-born priest has just completed Six Popes: A Son of the Church Remembers, a fascinating and colorful memoir of a life that has included attending the Second Vatican Council as an expert adviser, working as an official at the Congregation for Clergy for 24 years and, most recently, serving as an adviser at the Holy See’s Mission to the United Nations in New York.

Since last May, Six Popes has almost continuously numbered among the top ten in Amazon’s “Clergy” category. The stats, as of this posting, are:

Best Sellers Rank: #5,919 in Books

    • #2 in Religious Leadership (Books)
    • #2 in Christian Leadership (Books)
    • #2 in Christian Popes

Take a peek at its product page to see if you’d like to help it climb higher. The first chapter’s text is appended to that page’s About the Author section. (Click on Read more.)

 

Monsignor Hilary C. Franco’s wonderful life

Six Popes: A Son of the Church Remembers is Monsignor Hilary C. Franco’s memoir, an engaging story only a son can tell, a son not only of the Catholic Church, but also of Italian immigrants. In his telling of that story, it was my privilege to have played the role of scribe.

By God’s grace, Monsignor Franco will turn 89 on July 16th, but he’s by no means retired: the latest item on his impossibly long resume is his current role of Advisor to the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations. But that title doesn’t begin to convey the drama of his life. The stories of the six pontiffs Franco served are reference points along his walk through the corridors of spiritual power in New York, Washington, D.C., and Rome over the past 70 years.

Six Popes: A Son of the Church Remembers, published by Humanix Books last Tuesday, is Monsignor Franco’s eyewitness account of many of the people, events, and movements that shaped our world and the Catholic Church, including his assistance to Archbishop Fulton Sheen at the Second Vatican Council. There is no other book like it.

A few days ago, Newsmax TV’s Rachel Rollar interviewed Franco on Wake Up America. You can catch the five-minute chat here. During her interview she mentioned the Newsmax page where you can read Six Pope’s first chapter; here the link to that. The book’s introduction is on another Newsmax page. Please check them out, buy the book (hardcover or Kindle), and post a review!